From mud huts, umqomboti and straightback to penthouses, expensive weaves and moet!

Bonus MOAYW 287

It’s funny how the first person I wanted to protect was my baby, I didn’t care about myself or Mthobisi, my number one priority was the baby, she had to be safe first then the rest would follow. I wish I could put her in a bubble where no harm could come to her, where she would always be safe and protected, motherhood was really changing me. I didn’t even put a gown on I just left the room in a night dress, I didn’t care about being cold I just wanted to keep my baby safe. Mthobisi was calling behind me, he couldn’t shout out loud because he didn’t want to wake the baby, well it was too late for that because I was going to wake her up.
As I got into Dineo’s room and was about to pick her up Mthobisi was next to me asking “what are you doing?” I looked at him confused by his questions and he asked it again this time also asking me why I had said I was coming to get the baby. I told him because of his phone conversation about our house being surrounded by gunmen, he looked at me with more confusion in his face then a light bulb went on in his head “ohhh, that conversation? It was someone telling me what had happened. There are no gunmen surrounding our house, open the curtains and look outside and see for yourself” he said with a lot of confidence and self-assurance. I went to the window and opened the curtain, still in disbelief I looked outside and just like he had said there was no one outside, I took a sigh of relief and went to him and hugged him and said “thank you, I was so worried about Dineo I didn’t know what I was going to do with her.” He held my hand and led me back to our bedroom, I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid, just hearing a few words and assuming the worst, maybe his mom was right, I was a bit paranoid, I needed to calm myself down. When we got to bed Mthobisi laid my head on his chest and kept playing with my hair until I fell asleep. In the early hours of the morning I was woken up by Dineo’s cries, at first I was a little confused as to what was going on, it took me a few seconds to remember that I had a baby and that was the one that was crying and I needed to attend to her, I got out of bed, honestly not loving that moment,Mthobisi was snoring away, I went to her room and I feed her then changed her nappy and put her back in bed and waited for her to fall asleep and then dragged myself to my own bed after. Hardly thirty minutes later she was up again crying. I went to her room, picked her up and took her to our room and told Mthobisi to wake up because his daughter wanted to play, needless to say he was not impressed with me but this was our child not mine alone, we both made her and we were both going to share the responsibilities good and bad. “Play with her honey.” He said as he rolled himself to face the opposite direction from me, I went to the other side of the bed where he was facing and told him she was tired of playing with me and that she wanted her daddy. He was irritated and trying very hard not to show it, but so was I, my sleep is very important to me and any disruptions upset me. He took Dineo from me and started playing with her and she started crying again and he looked at me and asked what he was doing wrong. “You irritated, babies sense your mood, change your attitude.” I said with a smile on my face. “Okay baby-whisperer” he said with a smile on his face and we both laughed and as soon as we started laughing Dineo joined in on the laughing she was such a happy baby, she had a way of just making my heart melt. We all ended up in bed and we decided to let her sleep in our bed that night, it was her first night at home she was still getting used to it, that was our excuse for letting her sleep in our bed. The next morning Mthobisi was up first and woke me up with breakfast, I know this was sweet and romantic but all I wanted was more sleep I didn’t want food or care about it at the moment, the baby had kept me up most of the night and I honestly missed sleeping a full straight eight hours sleep with no interruptions, but I didn’t want to be rude to my husband so I got up, thanked him for the breakfast went to the bathroom to brushed my teeth and wash my face. When I got back to the room Dineo was up, I looked at Mthobisi and asked if he woke her up and he shook his head but had a mischievous smile on his face, I knew he must have woken her up but I had no strength to shout or argue with him. I quickly ate because I knew soon I would have to feed her. “What do you feel like doing today?” Mthobisi asked me a stupid question. The baby was only a few days I obviously could not go out, I smiled and said “movies would be great.” He smiled and said he was going to book us tickets online I shook my head in disbelief and asked “what are we going to do with her?” I asked pointing at the baby, he said we will find a baby-sitter to watch her while we go out. Hell to the no, I was not going to leave my baby with a stranger but I think being a mother had somehow matured my ways of thinking and reasoning because instead of shouting and throwing accusations of him being inconsiderate I simple said “Honey, we have lots of movie’s in the house, why don’t we stay in and watch movies here, we can bond as a family.” That immediately put a smile on his face and he agreed. When we were done with breakfast I feed Dineo, when I was done with that I bath her and then dressed her in one of her cute outfits that my mom bought for her, she looked so pretty, I loved my baby very much she had a piece of my heart. I asked Mthobisi to look after her while I quickly showered when I was done she was asleep, her sleeping patterns were all over the place, she slept and woke whenever she felt like it. That day I spent my morning watching TV, while Mthobisi was busy with work in his study, every now and again she would wake up, I would feed her, change her nappy and she would play with me or I would call my husband to come and play with her which he absolutely loved. Lunch time I let him play with her while I made us lunch and in the evening we watched a movie all three of us and around eight we took a break and gave Dineo a bath, after her bath we went back to watching movies and Dineo fell asleep midway through the movie so we decided to rather all go to bed because letting her sleep only meant she would wake up as soon as we went to bed, I swear our lives were revolving around the baby not that I minded at all. The following weeks that followed that was our daily routine, then Mthobisi had to go back to work and I was left with Dineo all by myself, my friends and family would visit every now and again but when they left it would just be me and my precious baby, there were days when I wish I could hide for a few hours, the constant crying was getting to me, don’t get me wrong I loved her with all my heart but I could not do a thing I had to watch her all the time, even taking a bath was a luxury, I had to take quick showers in between her naps, when I mentioned this to Mthobisi he suggested we get a nanny, I know he meant well by all this and the first time when he mentioned it I was against it, but after a few weeks with the baby I was soon realizing that this was no child play, I agreed to getting a nanny, I needed help, it doesn’t help me acting like superwoman while I was struggling, my mom was not going to move in with us to help me with the baby, she had her husband and work to take care of and I totally understood that. Mthobisi suggested that we hold interviews to make sure we get the best nanny for our daughter. I can’t say this was something I was looking forward to, there are a lot of crazy people out there claiming to be nannies only to come to your house steal your baby and all your furniture, I know I am being dramatic but I have heard horrific stories about the so-called “fake nannies” and I know they were putting a bad name against all the good nannies that were out there looking for jobs. I decided to enlist the help of an agent at least they would do all the background check and I would have someone to blame should they mess me up. That evening I sent a mail to an agent and the following morning I received a response with a list of names and their cv and references. I went through all of them and told her which ones I was interested in. I choose four people out of ten. The agent called and said she would set up the interviews. I was actually getting excited about the idea of having someone help me with Dineo then I would have time to do other things. That day when Mthobisi came back from work he told me he had a surprise for me and he covered my hands with his hand and led me outside when I got outside he removed his hands from my eyes and when I looked he had bought me a white Land Rover, he said I was a mother now and could no longer drive small cars I needed something big, a family car to be precise. I was so happy I was jumping up and down, I wanted us to go and test drive it but we heard Dineo crying so we had to run back inside to make sure she was okay. I cooked dinner while Mthobisi bathe her. After we ate I feed my daughter and she fell asleep while I was still feeding her, as soon as she fell asleep I put her in her bed in her room which never worked because I knew after a couple of hours she would start crying and I would have to move her to our bed, this was an everyday exercise, we were trying our best to get her to sleep alone in her room but we were failing. While she was sleeping Mthobisi put her car-seat in my new car and I asked to take it for a spin around the complex we couldn’t both go, one of us had to stay behind and watch the baby and the one obviously had to be him. I drove around the complex and gosh the car drove like a dream, I loved it. I went back to the house and Mthobisi said Dineo was still sleeping so we could have some adult quality time, I laughed because I knew exactly what he meant by “adult quality time”. We started kissing and as we were about to get serious she started crying so we had to stop and go attend to her. Mthobisi went to go get her from the room while I went to our room to prepare the bed because she was again going to sleep in our bed which had been happening ever since we moved back in the house.
The following morning, I was the first one up even before Dineo, for some reason I just could not sleep which was very rare for me, so I woke up and prepared breakfast for my husband he was very happy to receive breakfast before work because I had not done that since he had gone back to work. We ate breakfast and he left for work and I told him I had a few interviews set up with the agency, he asked if they were coming to the house, I told him I was going to their offices I didn’t want them coming back to the house to rob us if they didn’t get the job, Mthobisi nodded and said “yes, better be safe than sorry, you can’t trust just anybody these days.” We hugged and kissed each other goodbye and he left for work.
I quickly showered before Dineo woke up and got myself ready, I didn’t want to look like a lazy housewife so I tried to look formal, in all honesty I was slowly losing myself I had a degree but here I was unemployed and with no plan of finding a job, I didn’t even know if I should call myself a housewife or a businesswoman because I did try to open my own business until that bastard Spencer ruined it for me, I hope he was rotting in hell. While I was still undecided on what to wear Dineo woke up and I had to feed her and get her ready to go meet her possible new nanny. When we were done I put her at the back of the car and gave her favourite toy to keep her busy. We drove to the agency’s offices, they were in a very big office park in Rivonia, driving in that office park made me miss my days of being employed. I went to reception and told them I was there for Lucy, they called her and she came to meet us downstairs and took us to her office which was very nice and she told me that most clients preferred to do interviews at their homes, I told her there were a lot of chancers out there and I didn’t want to risk it, she smiled and said that was true. Half an hour later the first person arrived, a very lovely lady who said she had nursing experience and she played a bit with Dineo to show me her skills and she answered all my questions and I was really at ease with her. Forty-five minutes later another one came and she was also amazing with Dineo and I also liked her, after her was a gay guy arrived, I had never meet a gay nanny before and he was also amazing and I think I clicked more with him than I did with anyone else, the fourth person didn’t show up. After the last interview didn’t show up I thanked Lucy and I told her I would discuss with my husband and let her know who we will be selecting for the job, she walked us out. I went to the parking and placed Dineo in her seat and buckled her up. I drove out of the office park as I got to the gate there was a bit of chaos happening and I wasn’t sure what exactly was going on, it took me a few seconds to figure out that there was a truck that was being hijacked right at the gate of the office park, I saw guys running out of the truck and the hijackers shooting at them, I froze, I didn’t know what to do I was already out of the office park so I decided to turn back and go back inside, but I was shaking so hard that I was struggling to start the car, I had stopped paying attention to what was happening outside and focusing on the car and wanting to run back inside that I had not realized that the was a person at my window. The guy knocked and I switched on the car but it was on neutral so it wasn’t moving, while I was still trying to put it on drive I just saw the window break into a thousand pieces, I wasn’t sure if he had shot through the window or if he had punched it. The guy opened my door and pulled me out, I tried fighting back and shouting and telling him to leave me alone but he wouldn’t, he pulled me out of the car and got inside it. I screamed “wait” while I opened the back seat to get my baby out. I managed to open the door and as I was about to grab her, the car speed of with my baby inside.